JESUS CHRIST: GOD-MAN - Vital Christianity

106
The Bible, however, is not to be worshiped (bibliolatry) since worship only belongs to
God in the persons of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Still it is to be our authority, our standard,
our rule of faith and practice.
There is, then, strong evidence that the Bible is inspired by God. Yet what finally makes
us believe that the Bible is the Word of God is the testimony of the Holy Spirit. By examining
the evidences we can gain information which will hopefully instruct and clarify our understanding
of the nature of the Bible and show the reasonableness of its claims. Yet more
importantly, by reading the Bible itself, we come to believe that the Bible is divinely inspired if
we are open to its message. For then we begin to sense that it is God Himself who is speaking to
us through the Book. We have an experience similar to that which the two disciples had on the
road of Emmaus as they asked each other:
"Were not our hearts burning within us while He talked with us on the road and
opened the Scriptures to us?” (Lk 24:32).
THE CANON: HOW WE GOT OUR BIBLE
Even if we acknowledge that the Bible is the inspired, authoritative Word of God, how do
we know that the books we have in the Bible are the books that God intended as the Written
Word?
This brings up the issue of the canon, how we got our Bible. Since the Bible did not
magically fall out of heaven, like the Koran (the Holy Book of Islam), how did it get put
together? Who decided which books should be included? How do we know that the Bible
contains only those books God intended?
The term "canon" has come to be applied to the writings that make up the Bible.
"Canon" is a Greek word denoting a straight rod and came to be used for a bar, ruler, measuring
stick, standard, or model. This word was used to refer to those books which were "measured" by
a "standard" and accepted as divinely authoritative. These divine books were recognized as Holy
Scripture.
How was it determined whether a book qualified to be a part of the Old Testament? It had
to meet the following criteria:
● Divinely Inspired—A sense of the supernatural (authoritative)
● A Record of Actual Facts—Authentic
● Belongs to the Time and Place of the Writer--Genuine
● Accepted as Divinely Inspired by the people of God (those who belong to the church
universal)
The writings of Moses, Joshua, Samuel, and the other prophets were stored in the
tabernacle and venerated. Later writings often were appended to earlier ones.